Professional trainingMedical School: University of MinnesotaResidency: Internal Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, New HampshireFellowship: Infectious Diseases, University of Colorado & Harvard Medical School

Research interestsDr. Johnson is an active basic and clinical AIDS investigator. She is a world-renowned leader in the study of HIV-1 drug resistance, HIV-1 drug resistance testing, and the mechanisms of antiretroviral resistance development. Her research interests involve HIV drug development and pathogenesis, especially the detection and implications of viral drug resistance. More recently, she has been investigating viral hepatitis pathogenesis and drug development, particularly for HIV/HBV and HIV/HCV co-infections. She has played a leadership role within the AIDS Adult Clinical Trials Group (AACTG) since 1990 in virology assay and protocol development, and currently serves as Principal Investigator of the UAB Adult ACTG Virology Specialty Laboratory. This laboratory is heavily involved in developing and validating performance characteristics of novel virologic assays that assess HIV-1 and hepatitis viral pathogenesis and therapeutic response.

Dr. Johnson has played an active role locally and nationally in the design and implementation of studies of antiretroviral resistance, viral load, and viral dynamics. She was pivotal in getting HIV-1 drug resistance testing into the clinical arena and writing clinical guidelines for HIV-1 drug resistance testing. Since 2003, Dr. Johnson has been Chair of the International AIDS Society-USA (IAS-USA) Drug Resistance Mutations Group (www.iasusa.org), and is the Principal Investigator for the UAB AIDS Clinical Trials Unit.